6 ms·

The easier way to attack this is by instituting a know your customer law for phone systems including prepaid SIMs, combined with accomplice charges for anyone w

The easier way to attack this is by instituting a know your customer law for phone systems including prepaid SIMs, combined with accomplice charges for anyone who's SIM is used in connection with criminal acts.

VLM 5y ago
People are too free with their phones. Just walk into a bar and say you're too drunk to drive and could the bartender call my wife to pick me up? Not knowing its actually picking up $60M worth of coke instead of picking up me. Or pull off to the side of the road, walk in well dressed, wave a dead iphone in front of them, ask the receptionist "hey my car broke down and my battery is dead, could you call this number and tell them my car broke down?" Or bonus points if the cops arrive because you're blocking traffic, ask the cop to call on their phone. (edited I got the best idea that most anyone would fall for: Slip a kid $20 to ask an adult to call his mommie because he got lost...)
- monocasa 5y ago
  That's a function of there not being penalties. You'd see that change if the laws changed.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Penalties for what exactly, here? Good Samaritanism?
    - monocasa 5y ago
      The whole thread here is about penalties for assisting criminal enterprises with a SIM tied to your identity.
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        And if I place a call for someone on good-faith belief that they need assistance?
        monocasa 5y ago
        I don't get where your point is leading or coming from.
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        Let's back up a bit here. What specifically in this comment would you penalise? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28620403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28620403 And how would you address the issue of people being good sams --- making calls on behalf of someone else when they ask, in good faith. See for example RMS: When I need to call someone, I ask someone nearby to let me make a call. If I use someone else's cell phone, that doesn't give Big Brother any information about me. https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html
        monocasa 5y ago
        > What specifically in this comment would you penalise? One comment up from that I said: > The easier way to attack this is by instituting a know your customer law for phone systems including prepaid SIMs, combined with accomplice charges for anyone who's SIM is used in connection with criminal acts. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > And how would you address the issue of people being good sams --- making calls on behalf of someone else when they ask, in good faith. Prosecutorial discretion. And to be clear I'm not pushing for these laws; I think they're awful. I just see it as a clear direction that .gov is going to go if they feel the need to that's easier than maintaining zero days for general law enforcement. The ability to actually tie phones to personal identity in a way good enough for a court room.
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        Penalisation under a "KYC" law would have to be extreme. And I suspect there'd be all kinds of challenges to such a requirement. Again, the Good Sam loophole is huge.
- vkou 5y ago
  This is all well and good for communicating a single, pre-planned operation, but you're going to need to communicate a lot more in order to actually do all that pre-planning for it.
yholio 5y ago
That doesn't really work in practice. All it does is raise the price of black market sims by a fixed, low dollar amount, that is irrelevant for criminal operations willing to spend thousands of dollars for secure coms. Think about it: unless you distribute SIMs at the local police station, your last mile enforcement officer is just some guy in a kiosk making minimal wage. Assuming he is motivated by law to do his job right, and photocopy IDs etc., he's still untrained to spot fake ones, unwilling to make a ruckus if the customer face does not really match the ID etc. All it takes is one rogue distributor or some homeless guy, and you will have thousands of SIMS that can't be traced. Then you have anonymous roaming sims for people willing to pay the data roaming fees. It's a friction, not a silver bullet.

VLM 5y ago

People are too free with their phones. Just walk into a bar and say you're too drunk to drive and could the bartender call my wife to pick me up? Not knowing its actually picking up $60M worth of coke instead of picking up me. Or pull off to the side of the road, walk in well dressed, wave a dead iphone in front of them, ask the receptionist "hey my car broke down and my battery is dead, could you call this number and tell them my car broke down?" Or bonus points if the cops arrive because you're blocking traffic, ask the cop to call on their phone. (edited I got the best idea that most anyone would fall for: Slip a kid $20 to ask an adult to call his mommie because he got lost...)

monocasa 5y ago
That's a function of there not being penalties. You'd see that change if the laws changed.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Penalties for what exactly, here? Good Samaritanism?
  - monocasa 5y ago
    The whole thread here is about penalties for assisting criminal enterprises with a SIM tied to your identity.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      And if I place a call for someone on good-faith belief that they need assistance?
      - monocasa 5y ago
        I don't get where your point is leading or coming from.
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        Let's back up a bit here. What specifically in this comment would you penalise? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28620403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28620403 And how would you address the issue of people being good sams --- making calls on behalf of someone else when they ask, in good faith. See for example RMS: When I need to call someone, I ask someone nearby to let me make a call. If I use someone else's cell phone, that doesn't give Big Brother any information about me. https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html
        monocasa 5y ago
        > What specifically in this comment would you penalise? One comment up from that I said: > The easier way to attack this is by instituting a know your customer law for phone systems including prepaid SIMs, combined with accomplice charges for anyone who's SIM is used in connection with criminal acts. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > And how would you address the issue of people being good sams --- making calls on behalf of someone else when they ask, in good faith. Prosecutorial discretion. And to be clear I'm not pushing for these laws; I think they're awful. I just see it as a clear direction that .gov is going to go if they feel the need to that's easier than maintaining zero days for general law enforcement. The ability to actually tie phones to personal identity in a way good enough for a court room.
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        Penalisation under a "KYC" law would have to be extreme. And I suspect there'd be all kinds of challenges to such a requirement. Again, the Good Sam loophole is huge.
vkou 5y ago
This is all well and good for communicating a single, pre-planned operation, but you're going to need to communicate a lot more in order to actually do all that pre-planning for it.

yholio 5y ago

That doesn't really work in practice. All it does is raise the price of black market sims by a fixed, low dollar amount, that is irrelevant for criminal operations willing to spend thousands of dollars for secure coms. Think about it: unless you distribute SIMs at the local police station, your last mile enforcement officer is just some guy in a kiosk making minimal wage. Assuming he is motivated by law to do his job right, and photocopy IDs etc., he's still untrained to spot fake ones, unwilling to make a ruckus if the customer face does not really match the ID etc. All it takes is one rogue distributor or some homeless guy, and you will have thousands of SIMS that can't be traced. Then you have anonymous roaming sims for people willing to pay the data roaming fees. It's a friction, not a silver bullet.